Medication errors are increasingly recognized as an important cause of preventable deaths and injuries. A significant percentage of medication errors occur when a prescribed dosage or prescribed strength of a given drug is an incorrect or inappropriate dosage for the patient. Certain groups of patients, such as pediatric patients, are often subject to greater health risk and preventable drug-related morbidity as a result of dosage errors. These errors may be occurring due to healthcare providers, such as physicians or pharmacies, failing to adjust a dosage based on a weight, body size, and/or body surface area of the patient. Depending upon the drug prescribed, the consequences of prescribing an incorrect dosage could be dangerous, or even fatal, especially when the prescribed drug has a narrow margin of therapeutic safety or when the patient is particularly vulnerable. Another potential consequence is a lack of efficacy, such as may occur when a lower dosage is filled than what was prescribed.
Therefore, systems and methods for verifying dosages associated with healthcare transactions are desirable. Further, systems and methods for verifying dosages prescribed to infants are desirable.